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A navigation app that illuminates public land within privately held property

nytimes.com

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Re: A navigation app that illuminates public land within privately held property

#121

Post by null_object »

srcreigh wrote: post #94
mediascreen wrote: post #16

As someone who has grown up with "Freedom to roam"[0] laws, it seems so weird that you would need to keep track of who owns the land where you are hiking. (To be fair you can't just hunt wherever you want in Sweden either.) [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam#Sweden

Interesting. In Sweden people can roam with some restrictions. In particular they can't go close to someone's house (up to 70m). Also, in Sweden, they wanted to protect the right to walk along a shoreline, so due to the other rule they stopped allowing houses to be built closer than 100m to the shoreline.

> Also, in Sweden, they wanted to protect the right to walk along a shoreline, so due to the other rule they stopped allowing houses to be built closer than 100m to the shoreline

Naturally the rich and powerful have been claiming the shoreline along most of the coast around major towns in Sweden - this is especially true pretty much anywhere in the affluent suburbs around Stockholm, where house owners just extend their gardens down to the water.

As for freedom to roam - I’ve been walking around Södermanland the last few summers, and have met an amazingly few other Swedes hiking. Even during the pandemic I met more foreigners out on the paths. Swedes were safely ensconced in their cars.

Re: A navigation app that illuminates public land within privately held property

#122

Post by WarOnPrivacy »

runsWphotons wrote: post #78
WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The last thing I want is some random camping in my backyard. Story: A regional gov agency bought a large tract of land behind my home for conservation. A fireline was cut all around the edge of the tract and lined with a 4' wire fence that ran adjacent to our properties. Homeowners were unitedly happy the land wouldn't be developed but some were upset it was now available for public daytime use. Two disgruntled nei…

why were her concerns more important than his? old man was probably alone all day as well and unsettled

> why were her concerns more important than his? old man was probably alone all day as well and unsettled

Young mom is young and still sorting out how to tell FUD from actual risk. Also, her peer group is at actual risk from men. I can give her room to sort out what's what; meanwhile, the risk from men diminishes with age.

The old man was married and his adult kids where there a lot. I was on the HOA board and talked to him a number of times. He wasn't struggling with any concern for his safety; he resented that his visible area could be (<5x/yr as it was remote) briefly intruded by someone walking by on the other side of the fence.

Re: A navigation app that illuminates public land within privately held property

#123

Post by MacsHeadroom »

tarboreus wrote: post #67
torstenvl wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The dictionary definition is "the area close to where one lives, regarded with proprietorial concern"

Er, no. A yard is a single open space. Your backyard is the single open space behind (i.e., not in front of) your house.

In america "backyard" often refers to an area extending beyond ones own neighbourhood. It's where the acronym "NIMBY" (Not In My Backyard) comes from.

The OP could indeed be objecting to unknown people camping anywhere near their property, even off of it.

Re: A navigation app that illuminates public land within privately held property

#124

Post by Siddarth1977 »

Scaevolus wrote: post #21

A number of European countries have "freedom to roam". It would be nice if America had an equivalent, but given how lobbying works that seems impossible at this point. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam

This is a good "tell me you only know life in the city, without telling me you've only lived in the city".

To anyone living in a rural area or working in agriculture, conservation, timber/lumber, mining, ranching, hunting, etc, the idea of a finding a random stranger walking across their property would be as alarming as finding that stranger in their living room. The tourists may unintentionally cause damage, disrupt operations or create an unsafe condition even if they were well-meaning. And of course, many people will not be the ideal "leave no trace" expert and many will cause problems- they'll leave litter, they'll gather sticks for firewood, they'll clear areas for campsites, they'll walk on wet grass, they'll leave human waste, they'll leave fire rings with charred remains, they'll pick flowers or fruit, they'll take fossils, they'll carve their names in trees and paint on rocks, etc.

Ethically, if we're going to start taking away people's property rights, I'd rather we force vacant urban housing to be made available to rent before we start forcing farmers to clean up rogue campsites on their fallow fields.

Re: A navigation app that illuminates public land within privately held property

#125

Post by exabrial »

Really shortsided position by the land owner, and I have no doubt he’ll end up with far less rights than he started by raking people over the coals.

Pulling straight from Franklin Covey’s seven habits: think win-win. Simply allowing people to cross at the corner and encouraging them to do so by building a path works keeps them off his land and in public areas. Hell even charge them a reasonable fee for the crossing to keep it from becoming a free for all!

But the no compromise, ‘7 million airspace violation’ position will lose badly in the long term, even if he can convince if he can convince a few local juries for a few short sighted temporary wins. Worst case scenario is the federal government decides that there has to be land access and forces a road onto his private property. Now _that_ would suck.

Re: A navigation app that illuminates public land within privately held property

#126

Post by joshstrange »

jacob019 wrote: post #33
zoklet-enjoyer wrote: post #27

This is insane. Nobody should be allowed to block access like that. The land owner was harassing these men while they were on public land and is continuing to harass them using a court. The landowner should be in prison.

Prison--no... we do too much of that in this country already. He should be defeated though.

Do we throw too many people in prison: yes

Do the rich almost always avoid prison: yes

Maybe if we applied laws equally and actually jailed rich people who committed crimes instead of giving them fines/slaps on the wrist we'd have a few more powerful advocates for prison reform. And I'm not talking about sending them to white collar prisons [0], it's absurd how there are 2 sets of justice in the country.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IURcVw--Rg

Re: A navigation app that illuminates public land within privately held property

#127

Post by dumpsterlid »

Siddarth1977 wrote: post #124
Scaevolus wrote: post #21

A number of European countries have "freedom to roam". It would be nice if America had an equivalent, but given how lobbying works that seems impossible at this point. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam

This is a good "tell me you only know life in the city, without telling me you've only lived in the city". To anyone living in a rural area or working in agriculture, conservation, timber/lumber, mining, ranching, hunting, etc, the idea of a finding a random stranger walking across their property would be as alarming as finding that stranger in their living room. The tourists may unintentionally cause damage, disrupt…

You are speaking with a lot of assumed authority about what "rural people" as a large category think

Re: A navigation app that illuminates public land within privately held property

#128

Post by dumpsterlid »

saagarjha wrote: post #107
cscurmudgeon wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In practice it doesn't matter at all, just BLM (Bureau of Land Management) alone owns 387,500 sq mi of public land. For comparison, Scotland, is 30,090 sq mi in size . This is not counting local, state and national parks and forests. Why fix a problem that doesn't exist? Some of the largest parks are comparable in size to European countries. https://mapfight.xyz/map/yellowstone/ https://mapfight.xyz/map/death.valley/

Having to drive to a place to hike rather than just being able to go across the areas around you is annoying.

Exactly, the difference between unconnected wild areas (public access wise) and connected wild areas is massive. The landscape in large parts of the US is totally fenced in and splintered in a way that even if there is lots of public access it isn't effectively connected in a way that people can actually utilize it.

Re: A navigation app that illuminates public land within privately held property

#130

Post by MichaelZuo »

Siddarth1977 wrote: post #119
mediascreen wrote: post #16

As someone who has grown up with "Freedom to roam"[0] laws, it seems so weird that you would need to keep track of who owns the land where you are hiking. (To be fair you can't just hunt wherever you want in Sweden either.) [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam#Sweden

"Freedom to roam" laws are an archaic notion that only sort of work in very specific locations like the Nordic countries. Even with a large staff of park rangers and a budget for trail maintenance, trash bins, toilet facilities and informational signs about "leave no trace" ethics, it's still hard to minimize the damage tourists do in parks. And even within parks, we don't let people freely roam, we ask them to stay…

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